Nationalization Rumblings in South Africa

If there was ever a recipe to destroy South Africa and the dream of peaceful forgiveness, this it:

Some have interpreted this as meaning that the divisive topic will now be put on the back burner for two years while the study is being carried out. But they did not reckon on Julius Malema, the Youth League’s irrepressible leader, who has made the nationalisation of the mines—which has little to do with youth matters—the clarion call of his movement. He is now threatening to “disrupt” the operations of any mining company that resists nationalisation and to withdraw the league’s backing from ANC leaders who refuse to adopt its stance on the mines when they come up for re-election in 2012.

Interestingly, the National Union of Mineworkers, the country’s biggest and most influential union, has hit back, claiming that such statements threatened the livelihoods of the 400,000 workers in the mining industry. It refused to be “blackmailed, indoctrinated and manipulated by juveniles”, it said, calling on the ANC “to provide much-needed leadership to rein in its youth wing” so as to prevent “serious damage” being done to the reputation of South Africa’s mining industry. The Youth League has in its turn accused the union of being in cahoots with mine bosses and investors and caring little for the workers’ interests.

Under the 1955 Freedom Charter, drawn up by the ANC and its supporters at the height of apartheid and still regarded by many as the party’s Bible, “the mineral wealth beneath the soil” was to be “transferred to the ownership of the people as a whole”. Nearly half a century later, a law was passed bringing this into effect. Under it, the state became the “custodian” of all the country’s mineral and petroleum resources, with the power to provide licences to public or private companies wishing to exploit those resources, but for no longer than 30 years. The state retains legal ownership.

But the Youth League wants to go further and nationalise the means of production as well as the resources in order, it says, to distribute the profits among the people as a whole. But some suspect the league’s sudden passion for nationalisation is more to do with wanting to bail out their black-economic-empowerment buddies in the mining sector, many of whom fell on hard times during the commodity slump in 2008-09. It is even whispered that some youth leaders have accepted money in return for pushing the nationalisation agenda, which the league has hotly denied. But, whatever Mr Malema and his friends say, state ownership of the mines is unlikely to happen any time soon.

The youth league leader sounds like he has found a wedge issue with which he can burnish his radical credentials and march to power, in the name of the people of course. One hope this falls flat, or South Africa could end up like this.